Did you know that using video on a landing page can increase conversion rates up to 80%? Or that when a video is used, users will spend about two minutes longer on that particular web page? And perhaps the most surprising stat of all is that 70% of users actually prefer to view a video than reading boring copy?

When you take those stats into consideration, it makes sense to use video on web pages. On top of the conversion benefits, using video on a web page can have a huge impact on the overall page design and will also have the added benefit of making your brand memorable. Of course, all of those benefits are reliant on the quality of the video you use.

Video backgrounds have become a popular design feature in recent times. When utilized properly, they can both entertain and inform users.

Take PayPal, for example. Their use of a video background perfectly illustrates the convenience of using their services. The videos are simple and concise. I’d argue that they say more about the brand than a few paragraphs of text possibly could. Why? Because it has become the norm for so many of us to skip through the text and just navigate to where we need to go.

PayPal’s well-made videos might just make you stop and pay attention to what’s happening on your screen. It helps create a connection with the brand.

The good news is that it’s now pretty easy to add a video background to your WordPress-powered website. Let’s take a look at a plugin that will do the hard work for you.

Maintaining a high level of productivity as a developer, especially as a remote developer working from home, can be exceedingly difficult. Not every line of code you write will come easy and you will likely find yourself scratching your head as you search for a solution to an issue. Distractions can be particularly problematic during these times.

Developers are many things. They’re problem solvers, creative’s, inventors, and many times artists. From the beginning of a new project to the moment the final line of code has been written, maintaining focus and productivity levels is essential. If you are working as part of a team, having your bits and pieces in place when they are needed becomes especially important.

So, how do you maintain productivity? The office is where we go to get interrupted, but what do you do when you have no choice?

Web design is all about telling a story and conveying the right message. Irrespective of the genre or topic of the website in question, great web design leaves no stone unturned in its bid to connect and interact with its users. In fact, the onus and willingness to interact and send out a message is what separates great web design from good ones.

And when it comes to fostering interaction or conveying a message, nothing beats videos!

This post has been published as part of our Master Video in Web Design event. For more articles, tutorials and free files click here.

It should come as no surprise that fullscreen video backgrounds are quickly growing in popularity. Internet speeds are increasing, browser technology is advancing, and the simplicity of capturing HD video is galvanizing. Since this trend has gained such a large following I’d like to cover some general design tips, guidelines and some resources for creating your own video backgrounds.

This post has been published as part of our Master Video in Web Design event. For more articles, tutorials and free files click here.

You might think so, but it’s more likely that you — like many freelancers — are charging much less than what your clients are willing to pay. This is especially true if you do excellent work (and I’m guessing that you do).

The primary reason freelancers are undercharging is simple — we’re scared to do it. We worry that the work that we are doing isn’t good enough or that we aren’t experienced enough to charge more. We worry that if we raise our rates, then all of our clients will run away.

One of my biggest frustration with using Photoshop is the fact that is that there’s a default limit on history states you can roll back to. This handy tutorial is a superb quick tip, which will show you how you can increase the limit to any amount of your choice.

Tutorial details

Tutorial

If you’re a web professional looking to streamline the process of designing and developing a WordPress theme, using a framework may be just what you need.

Ideally, a WordPress framework is going to make your life easier. It gives you a foundation to build your site upon with features like pre-made page layouts, theme options that can be setup in the WordPress admin, CSS, Sass, hooks, filters, pre-loaded jQuery plugins, etc.

Instead of writing all of your CSS, PHP, et. al. from scratch, a framework can serve as a great starting point. The basic layouts are done (though you certainly may want to customize them). A good framework may have multiple spots for widgets and navigation built in. That’s going to reduce the amount of time spent on a given project.

Looking for a great new website and don’t know where to start? Here are some beautiful, premium-coded HTML templates for personal websites. Create your own personal website in just minutes! These awesome HTML templates can be used to create online resumes, CVs, vCards and even portfolios.

Choose the one that fits you most and install it or customize it! Here they are!

Photoshop is the very best tool for photography when it comes to enhancing and manipulating the look of a photograph. Its surprisingly fairly easy to make a slightly imperfect photo look like a jaw dropping shot with the aid of Photoshop.

In today’s round up we have compiled a list of the very best Photoshop step by step guides for how to master the art of retouching photographs. The beauty of of the list of Photoshop tutorials is regardless of your skill level weather your a novice, or a veteran Photoshop user the tutorials are fairly easy to grasp.

Design Community

I recently began working with someone who wanted to learn how to build their own website, rather than simply have me build it for them. As a web developer I’d obviously appreciate the longer term relationship of building and maintaining a site, and let’s be honest, that would likely have made me more money in the long-term.

However, the process of actually teaching someone the basics of HTML turned out to be really fun. The best part about web development is not updating and maintaining a site, it’s about taking an idea and seeing it come to life. That is exciting.

This post is geared towards complete beginners yet not an in-depth tutorial that will teach you absolutely everything you need to know about HTML. It will merely help you take that first step. So, let’s take that first step together…

Get up-to-speed fast with some of the most important and useful tools and elements within Photoshop. Even if you’re a seasoned pro, there are some great tips and shortcuts here that you may not already know about.

If you’re new to Photoshop, knowing how to uncover the true power of Adobe’s graphic editor, and learning those fundamentals quickly, can typically take a lot of time and practice.

Unleash the Power!

To help with that initial learning curve however, why not check out the following 8 tutorials by VideoHive author Amigo Productions?

Each video covers useful and important functions within Photoshop that will quickly get you up-to-speed and give you a greater appreciation of what lies under the hood of the most dominant graphics software in the world.

If you want to start learning Android app development, then you’re in the right place! We looked for the best Android learning resources for app developers and selected the ones that are most useful for you!

If you blog, write or create any form of text-related content for the web, you must already be aware of Markdown. It is a very popular plain text formatting syntax that can be used to create formatted text easily and convert it to valid HTML.

In easier words, Markdown is what you should use to make your life easy if you work with formatted text on a regular basis.

Introduction

So what exactly is Markdown? As already mentioned, Markdown offers a simple plain text formatting syntax that can convert text to valid HTML. Even though it is a decade old, Markdown has not shrunk in popularity, in fact it’s rising.

Created by John Gruber, Markdown can be used to write notes, documents, blog posts, technical specifications, and virtually anything else that might require a writing workflow.

Since the turn of the year there has been an influx of articles, infographics and videos from prominent marketers and respected publications that have all taken a stab at predicting what digital marketing trends we’ll potentially be seeing this year.

Taking all of that collective information in its entirety, there is a lot for marketers to consider. Perhaps too much. So, we asked our own Envato Market marketing team for their personal thoughts on some of the latest marketing trends and to also share what key areas and innovations they felt we should be keeping an eye on this year as well.

The first monthly round-up of the year, which as normal features some great articles worth reading through about webdesign. There’s also some amazing Photoshop and illustrator tutorial where you can learn some great new design techniques.